Back

Today in Labor History March 23, 1980: Archbishop Oscar Romero of El Salvador gave a speech appealing to the men of the Salvadoran armed forces to stop killing Salvadoran civilians. The next day, they assassinated him, too, while he was celebrating Mass. No one was ever convicted for the crime, the United Nations Truth Commission for El Salvador concluded that Major Roberto D'Aubuisson had ordered the assassination. At the time, D’Aubuisson was a death squad leader. He later founded the right-wing Nationalist Republican Alliance (ARENA) political party. D’Aubuisson, a neo-fascist and an alumnus of the notorious School of the Americas (aka School of the Assassins) in Fort Benning, Georgia, went on to serve as president of the Legislative Assembly, and to run for president, ultimately losing to another brutal right-winger, Jose Napoleon Duarte.

Though he was hailed by supporters of Liberation Theology, Romero’s biographer wrote that he was never interested in that movement, and that he faithfully adhered to Catholic teachings on liberation and a preferential option for the poor. And throughout his life he continued to draw inspiration from Opus Dei. However, after the assassination of his friend and fellow priest Rutilio Grande, also in 1977, he became critical of the military. In 1997, Pope John Paul II gave Romero the title of Servant of God, and the church opened a cause for his beatification. Pope Francis canonized him in 2018.